Today is Easter Monday in Hungary and in many Catholic nations around the world. Here’s wikipedia’s explaination. It is basically just an extension of the Easter celebration.

Even though it is a holiday, I’m at the office. With my conference starting on Sunday, I couldn’t afford the day off. It will be nice to get a ton done while I’m the only one at the office.

Please pray for the MinistryNet conference as there are still some people awaiting visas. We don’t want this to be a reason for people to not attend.

Well, some people blog more when they get busy (like my brother-in-law going to Brazil). I, on the other hand, blog less. It seems that when life gets busy, blogging is the first thing to go.

Anyway, there is a reason for my busyness. In 11 days, 50 people from around the world will be converging on Budapest for MinistryNet: Budapest 2005. Campus Crusade for Christ staff that are involved or would like to be involved in internet ministry are coming to talk about how to reach the lost online. Check out the website now to see what we will be doing. During the conference, come back to see how things are going. Someone will be blogging during the conference and we will also post some of the talks online.

I might reappear when it is all over on my birthday, April 10th. Maybe I’ll have time to blog between now and then. We’ll see.

Tonight is a big night for Aggie Basketball. Although, we didn’t make it to the big dance, we are playing in the post-season for the first time in a long time. I think we have a chance to go far because we have played against tough competition in the Big-12 all year.

It is a tough draw in playing Clemson, who upset Maryland and took North Carolina to the wire in the ACC tourney. I’m hoping home-court will be the difference.

Watch out OrangeJack!! You’re tigers are going down.

Here we are outside of Starbucks in Wien. Every trip to Wien requires a visit to Starbucks. It is more expensive than in the US and the sizes are smaller, but it feels so American!!! It is so nice to enjoy something that is so familiar. I’ll have a Grande Mocha please!

Food, Glorious Food. When you are in Wien (not Vienna – see earlier post), the you have to eat Wienerschnitzel! A few years ago when I first visited, I found this restaurant called Figlmüller. It has the biggest Wienerschnitzel in the world. It hangs over the edge of the plate and it is incredible. I’ve now eaten there 6 or 7 times and I can’t wait to go back again.

Yesterday we went to Vienna with my parents. This brought up one of my biggest pet peeves about the world. Why does every language have different names for cities?

For instance, Vienna. We call it “Vienna”, the real name in German is Wien, in Hungarian it is Bécs (pronounced Baych). What is up with that? Bécs sounds nothing like Vienna. It seems like we could just all call it Wien, which is the actual name of the city. The signs from Budapest pointing to Wien have a ton of different names on them (if we could all just agree, it would save money on signs)

Another example, Germany.
Real Name – Deutchland (what’s wrong with that? Why can’t we all call it that?)
English – Germany
Hungarian – Nemetország (Hungarian is weird so we’ll forgive that one)
Spanish – Alemania (nothing like any of the others)

The list goes on and one. Maybe the world would be a more peaceful place if we could agree on what to call each other.
 

My parents have been here in Budapest for the past week! My dad has been doing some Project Management Training for some of our Bulgarian Staff. It has been a great time. Here’s Dad reading a book to the kids. Is there anything better than having your grandfather read you a book? 

Valerie & I try to continually remind ourselves that everything we have is the Lord’s. Therefore, if he wants something to go wrong with his stuff, then that is His problem and we just need to trust Him.

Tonight, the Lord decided that it would be okay if the key wouldn’t turn in the ignition of the van (Yes, I tried to turn the wheel and unlock it). It won’t budge. I can’t even get the dashboard lights to come on. I tried both keys, turned them upside down, pulled them out of the slot a little bit . . .NOTHING!!!

Therefore, the Lord’s van is sitting in front of our kid’s school waiting for someone to steal it. We aren’t worried about it, because it isn’t ours I’m not sure what we are going to do about it. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!@#$%^&

Another “funny” side-note is that after we rolled the van down the hill to find a good lighted parking place for the night, our car wouldn’t start. We sat there for 5+ minutes and finally got it started. The Lord almost decided that he didn’t want us using His vehicles anymore.

We are so glad that my parents came back to Budapest on Saturday for their third visit. My dad, also named Tom, works for Campus Crusade for Christ at the headquarters in Orlando. He is coming to work with our staff in Bulgaria and here in Budapest do some planning for a major Jesus Film Campaign next year in Bulgaria. We are so thankful to have them here!!!

Last night we opened the boxes that they brought for us. They were filled with wonderful things from America that we can’t get over here. There was Pace Picante Sauce, Ranch Style Beans, Green Chilis, ZipLoc Bags, medicines, toys for the kids, and much more (I need to start charging those sponsors for mentioning them here).

When we opened one of the boxes, Valerie realized that a bag of Fritos had ripped open in transit. She yelled “Fritos” and both of us started shoveling the loose Fritos into our mouths. We hadn’t thought about Fritos in a long time, but when we put the first one in our mouth, we couldn’t get enough. We kept digging down farther and farther into the box to get all of the loose chips. We were starved for some American flavors and those chips were just what we needed. After the last Frito was gone, we were slightly embarrased by our ravenous binge, but still enjoying the great taste in our mouths. I never thought Fritos could bring so much joy!!!